This journey sucks!

Journey so far: .. Taiwan > Hong Kong > Beijing > Harbin > Yanji > Songjianghe >Changbai Mountain > Dandong > Dalian > Dandong > Chengde > Beijing > Datong > Hohhot > Huitengxile > Hohhot > Taiyuan > Zhengzhou > Xi'an > Lanzhou > Zhangye > Jiaugyuan > Jingtieshan > Jiaugyuan > Dunhuang > Urumuqi > Kanas Lake > Urumuqi > Kashgar > Tashkurgan > Karakul Lake > Kashgar (Kashi) > Hotan > Qiemo > Ruoqiang > Shimianquan > Golmud > Lhasa (Tibet) > Gyantse > Shigatse > Shegar > Everest Base Camp (Rongbuk) > Zhangmu > Borderlands > Kathmandu (Nepal) > Chitwan National Park > Gorkha > Bandipur > Pokhara > Lumbini > Kathmandu > Sunauli > Dehli > Kausani > Agra > Khajuraho > Varanasi > Calcutta (Kolkata) > Bangkok (Thailand) > Vientiane (Laos) > Vang Vieng > Luang Prabang > Phonsavanh > Vientiane > Bangkok (Thailand) > Siem Reap (Cambodia) > Phnom Penh > Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon (Vietnam) > Hoi An > Hue > Hanoi > Guilin > Yangshuo > Changsha > Yichun > Tangkou (Huangshan) ...

A little blog of our most outrageous journey in recent months!

The Route Plan
We were in Yangshuo and wanted to get to Huangshan. Why? Huangshan is one of the most beautiful mountains in China.

Thanks to the Hong Kong Observatory website you can (sort of) see the route on this map. We started in Yangshuo, near Guilin (bottom left of the map) to Huangshan (top right of the map). You can even see Taiwan... and how small it is in comparison to south China!


So the journey direct by train is 27 hours.

Cupboard hotel
We get the quick bus from Yanhshuo to Guilin for Y26 together. At the Guilin bus station we ask for a bus ticket to Huangshan.... "Mayo" ("No have" in Chinese). So the pattern had started! Again we ask for different places and we are eventually offered a ticket to Changsha (On the map above). It's the nearest big city. We pay 386Y, an insane price for a bus, but it's Lantern Festival... nice one!

We arrive in Changsha at midnight, it's cold and everything is shut. We meet a crazy bunch of desperado's wanting to offer taxis and hotels... One women says the magic word "40Y". A good price, so we walked to her "house-hotel". She's basically stuck plaster board around the flat creating small broom-cupboards and thrown an old rock hard bed in to finish the filthy look. We stare at it and feel depressed... but we're too tired to walk back into the dark cold. We give the way-too-much 40Y and find space to breath but little else as touching the bed or the walls would result in instant infection of some kind. We huddle in the filthy bed!

"Mayo" in your face
We wake at 7:00am, well I got no sleep on the stupid hard bed so I didn't really need to wake up! We left tired, sore and ready to finish this crap. At the bus station we get more "Mayo"... we desperately try every place on our Let's Go guide.... "Mayo". Sod this, I think, lets go back to Yuangshuo and relax in relative luxury.

Let's Go... but we can't


Everyone in the massive queue was pushing and shoving, throwing money at the ticket lady... quite normal in China but just more people at this time of year. With all the screaming, pushing and staring we found a ray of light... a young man wanted to help... he suggested Yichun... he said it was a big city in the right direction and close to Huangshan. We considered, wondered why it wasn't on our map and decided to be grateful and buy the tickets.

He left and we paid 125Y to Yichun... I was worried as we knew all bus prices were sky high and 125Y seemed too cheap for a long journey. Mmmm... so we found the bus and crossed our fingers.

The bus came off the highway very early into the trip and then we found ourselves watching little, muddy ghost towns pass on the bumpiest road. What are we doing here? We quickly arrived in the city of Yichun. We'd only travelled for four hours, in Chinese terms "just up the road".

We got straight off the bus and headed to the ticket office. "Huangshan, please" I asked the ticket lady... "Mayo!" she replied. Was this a joke? Bloody poo journey. We went through all the places and again were left with no destination. As a last resort, before turning back, we decided to go to the train station. Not likely though as train tickets are always snapped up days in advance and this was festival time. Oh well!

Outrageous
The queue at the train station was so long it was managed outside under a markee with guards. I thought "sod this" and belligerently walked to the front... the guard pointed to the queue and said in Chinese to line up... I played dum-tourist and started asking questions in English... looking into the ticket office and generally acting confused. He relented and let me in. Score! Inside another guard took me to the front of the queue and we asked for a ticket to Huangshan... guess what! "Mayo"...

Just before I collapsed on the floor in tears he asked us to follow him. Interesting!?!? He told us to wait and would help us.

So we waited for 5 hours in the cold waiting room with no ticket, managing to get some pot noodles in our stomachs. We had a feeling of trepidation, what was going to happen next?

Anyway at the end of the wait we were escorted onto platform 1 by about five guards, one platform manager and one English speaking woman who they'd recruited as our translator. No sleeper... no seats... you're standing! Shit! A 12 hour overnight journey with standing room only. I laugh now... I thought it would be OK, after all we were going to arrive in Huangshan.

A typical orange China train.


We settled amongst the smokers and freezing draft, standing and crouching on the wet floor (in the bit of the train that people use to get from one carriage to another and smoke).

At 3:00am Kate was looking sickly white, she felt faint and I was worried she would get really ill. After all the hours travelling and lack of sleep this was pushing her body a little too far. I was fine... strong strapping lad!

Good news at 3:30am, an upgrade to hard-sleeper was offered. We paid up 160Y and I've never before enjoyed the feeling of stretching my legs... not even the loud snoring above me, the stinky fruit next to me or the couple of hours of sleep ahead of me could distress me.

We arrived in Huangshan at 7:00 looking and smelling less than fresh but ready to stumble in to the nearest hotel and sleep.... but not after sitting on a bus to take the hour journey from the train station to the base of Huangshan. It was here that we noticed the freezing cold... we could see our breath in our hotel room!

In hindsight the journey was pretty tough on us both but the subsequent days spent on the mountain quickly made up for it. It was one of the most impressive places I've been too. Everest was stunning, but Huangshan we actually got to climb up.

Well worth the journey... just once though


Now we're heading back to Yangshuo (only two sleeper train trips this time!) to pick up my backpack.

MC
P.S. Any monetary sympathy donations would be gratefully accepted.